APC Bulletin #61

1. Ensuring the Academic Success of Summer

Two guests, William Webster, Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Facilities (Berkeley) and David Unruh, Director of Summer Sessions (Los Angeles) joined the Academic Planning Council to address academic opportunities and challenges of State-funded summer instruction. As Assistant Vice President Sandra Smith noted, even with State funding, summer enrollment is voluntary for students. It is therefore essential that along with providing the financial incentives of lower per-unit fees and financial aid, campuses must also design an academic program that will attract students. It will be important for academic departments to understand this dynamic of voluntary attendance as they take on more of the responsibility for summer courses. Using summer as a time for innovation and variation from the course-delivery practices in the regular academic year is one way summer sessions successfully attracted students before State funding was available and it is a continuing opportunity in the new configuration.

Vice Provost Webster described the work of a committee formed at the Berkeley campus two years ago to consider the “regularization” of summer. A draft report describing their findings and recommendations to date is available (http://vpapf.chance.berkeley.edu/sumsess.pdf). Among the topics he described to the APC were faculty teaching assignments both as overload and as a part of the regular teaching load. The campus is discouraging overload teaching, especially for assistant professors who need to be doing research. The alternative of shifting teaching assignments to the summer would carry with it the opportunity for a faculty member to take off another three contiguous months. The campus expects that some governance activities may also move to a year-round basis.

One practice the Berkeley campus wants to retain is its “profit-sharing” with departments that teach summer courses. Under the self-supporting model, departments that generated excess revenue were able to share in the profits. The campus is working out a method for incorporating a similar “payout” for departments. The approach being developed encourages high summer enrollments.

Director Unruh described some of UCLA’s successes in attracting a large summer enrollment. One contributing factor has been the campus’s more vigorous attention to minimum progress requirements. Students are taking summer courses in order to keep up with these requirements, and as a consequence are graduating earlier, opening up slots for new students. UCLA is also considering whether to increase the length of its sessions. Some believe that six-week sessions are too short for adequate instruction and learning to occur, but are also concerned that longer sessions may drive students away. UCLA is seeking to make summer look more like the academic year for both students and faculty while, at the same time, recognizing the unique character and quality of summer study.

APC members suggested that it would be helpful if more information could be shared about campus discussions on various aspects of State-funded summer instruction, both academic and operational. For example, the Office of the President could provide website links to campus documents and websites.

2. Long Range Enrollment Update

AVP Smith updated the APC on various aspects of long-range enrollment planning. In November the President had asked campuses to consider their 2010 enrollment planning targets and to begin discussing as well what enrollments they would like by 2015. Recent conversations with the Chancellors indicate that some would like more time to consider their long term potential for accommodating students. Tentatively they believed they might collectively be able to take approximately 6,000 more students by 2010, but summer instruction would have to be State-funded at all campuses to make such growth possible. The Chancellors also suggested that we develop ways to use the community colleges better in educating UC-eligible students and to find more ways to get students through faster.

AVP Smith also noted that CPEC will be conducting its periodic assessment of eligibility criteria to see what percentage of high school graduates they produce. Their findings, expected in spring of 2004 on the high school graduating class of 2003, will provide important information for enrollment planners. The University will spend the next year reconsidering its enrollment growth plans.

3. Task Force on Faculty Instructional Activities Update

AVP Smith reported that the Task Force on Faculty Instructional Activities will soon complete its report reassessing the way UC describes to Sacramento the formal classes as well as other unit-bearing activities that our faculty teach. This report will recommend a better way to provide a general, public understanding of the scope and quantity of faculty instructional activities.

Another aspect of the work of this task force is to examine teaching policies and practice within UC and, to the extent possible, compare UC’s experiences with those of other universities. Task force members conducted 140 interviews with UC faculty who have come from other institutions, with selected department chairs at our comparison universities, and with chairs in those same disciplines at UC campuses to determine workload practices. It is a complex task to make comparisons because of differences in leave and course-release policies, variability in the units awarded for courses, and substantially different traditions and practices among disciplines. Preliminary findings indicate that the number of courses faculty are expected to teach at UC is about the same as at other institutions, but that classes at UC may be larger.

4. Undergraduate Deans Response to APC Recommendations about Writing

The APC has discussed both Subject A and writing proficiency in general at previous meetings. Following Academic Senate review of Subject A, the APC requested that the Council of Undergraduate Deans address the broader issues of whether UC is adequately teaching students to write. (See http://www.ucop.edu/planning/apcfiles/apc58.html). The Undergraduate Deans have responded to this request by developing operating principles and initial recommendations for further action.

The Deans would like to start by articulating the goals for student communication skills (more broadly conceived than just writing skills). They note that there are varying points of view held by the various stakeholders (deans, faculty at large, writing faculty, Academic Senate committees, etc.) that must be recognized and considered in order to garner support from the groups needed to implement any final recommendations. The Deans also noted that the continuing development of undergraduates’ communication skills is not “someone else’s job” and that all faculty must take ownership of this shared responsibility. As the Deans make progress, they will continue to advise the APC and the Academic Senate of their findings and recommendations.

APC members were impressed by the Deans’ initial response to the challenge of considering writing and other communication skills in the undergraduate experience. They liked the approach of starting by establishing agreed-upon standards rather than trying to develop solutions to a vaguely and variously defined problem.

5. Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color and National Origin (Racial Privacy Initiative)

Senior Vice President King advised the APC that the Regents would be discussing the ballot measure commonly known as the Racial Privacy Initiative with a recommendation from the President that the Regents oppose it. Analysis by the Office of General Counsel indicates that UC faculty research and administrative analysis of University operations (included admissions and enrollment) could be curtailed by the implementation of the initiative which would prohibit classification by the state and the University of certain individuals by racial, ethnicity or national origin. If the initiative passes, the courts will make decisions that will clarify the extent to which faculty could collect and use data for research purposes. The Regents Item and related analysis are available at http://www.ucop.edu/regents/regmeet/may03/1ef.pdf.